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The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has jointly awarded Katalin Karik\u00f3 and Drew Weissman the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
The honor was bestowed in recognition of their \u201cdiscoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19\u201d.<\/p>\n
The pair have been awarded a prize fund of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1million), which will be shared between them.<\/p>\n
This is the first Nobel Prize announcement of this week, to be followed by the prizes for Physics tomorrow and Chemistry on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Thursday, meanwhile, and the Peace Prize on Friday \u2014 followed by the The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in\u00a0Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel on the Monday of next week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In a press release, The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet said: \u201cThe discoveries by the two Nobel Laureates were critical for developing effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 during the pandemic that began in early 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir groundbreaking findings [\u2026] have fundamentally changed our understanding of how mRNA interacts with our immune system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karik\u00f3 and Weissman, they added, have \u201ccontributed to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times.\u201d<\/p>\n
The duo have previously won several other awards for their work, including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Lasker\u2013DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award and the Tang Prize Award in Biopharmaceutical Science.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Commenting on the announcement, immunologist Professor John Tregoning of Imperial College London said: \u201cKati Karik\u00f3 is one of the most inspirational scientists I have met.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ideas that she and Drew Weismann developed were critical for the success of RNA vaccines.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey demonstrated that changing the type of the RNA nucleotides within the vaccine altered the way in which cells see it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis increased the amount of vaccine protein made following the injection of the RNA, effectively increasing the efficiency of the vaccination: more response for less RNA.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a vital building block of the success of the RNA vaccines in reducing disease and death during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir work shows the importance of basic, fundamental research in the path to solutions to the most pressing societal needs.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Professor Brian Ferguson is an immunologist with the University of Cambridge, England.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIt is wonderful news that the Nobel Prize winners for medicine\/physiology in 2023 are scientists who worked for decades building knowledge and understanding that underlies the design and manufacture of mRNA vaccines that saved so many lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is now recognised as a transformative technology required dedicated scientists to carry out fundamental research over many years to reach the position it was in 2020 when its rapid deployment as a vaccine technology was made possible by global collaboration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe work of Katalin Karik\u00f3 and Drew Weissman in the years prior to 2020 made this possible and they richly deserve this recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Nobel Prizes are awarded each year for “contributions that conferred the greatest benefit to humankind in the areas of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace”. They are typically regarded as the most prestigious awards in these fields.<\/p>\n
The prizes were established by the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel who \u2014 on his death in 1896 \u2014 left all of his \u201cremaining realizable assets\u201d to set up the awards, with the first iteration being awarded in 1901.<\/p>\n
While apocryphal, a story goes that Nobel was motivated to create the prizes after reading his unflattering (and premature) obituary published by a French newspaper in error, shortly after the death of Alfred\u2019s brother, Ludvig.<\/p>\n
The obituary is reported to have damned him for his invention of military explosives, saying \u201cLe marchand de la mort est mort (\u201cThe merchant of death is dead\u201d) \u2014 and accusing Nobel of becoming rich by finding ways to kill people \u201cfaster than ever before\u201d.<\/p>\n
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